About a year ago I stopped making regular updates to this blog to concentrate on my Namnesia Antidote blog. While that is an ongoing effort, I am starting what should be about a year long effort to revitalize the concept of a "This Day in History" blog. I have decided to leave this blog intact and as-is, using a new "This Day in History 2.0" blog for my expanded and full version. Please feel free to email with your ideas. The two tables below should allow you to find a posting for the "Day in History" you wish to research.

Sunday, December 10, 2006

December 10......

December 10 is the 344th day of the year (345th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 21 days remaining in the year on this date.

EVENTS

● 741 - Zacharias becomes Pope

● 1294 - Pope Coelestinus V becomes Pope (until Dec 13th)

● 1041 - Empress Zoe of Byzantium elevates her adoptive son to the throne of the Eastern Roman Empire as Michael V.

● 1508 - The League of Cambrai is formed by Pope Julius II, Louis XII of France, Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor and Ferdinand II of Aragon as an alliance against Venice.

● 1520 - German reformer Martin Luther publicly burned Pope Leo X's bull, "Exsurge Domine," which had demanded that Luther recant his "protestant" heresies, including that of justification by faith alone rather than through purchased indulgences or other papal favors. The Pope demanded that he recant or face excommunication. Luther refused and was formally expelled from the church in January 1521.

● 1582 - France begins use of Gregorian calendar

● 1593 - Italian archaeologist Antonio Bosio first descended into the subterranean Christian burial chambers, located under the streets of Rome. Bosio was dubbed the "Columbus of the Catacombs," and his books long remained the standard work on the underground tombs of the early Roman Church.

● 1851 - American librarian Melvil Dewey was born. He created the "Dewey Decimal Classification" system.

● 1854 - The second construction of the structure known as St Paul's Outside the Walls was consecrated. The church is one of four major basilicas in Rome. The original edifice was erected by Roman emperor Constantine in 324, and rebuilt as a larger basilica in the late fourth century by the Emperor Honorius (395).

● 1861 - American Civil War: Kentucky becomes the 13th state admitted to the Confederacy.

● 1864 - American Civil War: Sherman's March to the Sea - Major General William T. Sherman's Union Army troops reach Savannah, Georgia beginning 12 day siege.

● 1865 - Birth of August Spies, one of the Haymarket anarchists, victim of anti-anarchist repression.

● 1868 - The first traffic lights are installed outside the Houses of Parliament in London. Resembling railway signals, they use semaphore arms and are illuminated at night by red and green gas lamps.

● 1896 - Alfred Bernhard Nobel died in San Remo, Italy. He was a Swedish chemist who invented dynamite. In his in his will he stipulated that income from his $9 million estate be used for annual prizes for people judged to have made valuable humanitarian deeds.

● 1898 - Spanish-American War: The Treaty of Paris is signed, officially ending the conflict. US acquires Philippines, Puerto Rico & Guam. The U.S. granted the Philippines its independence in 1948, but retains the other two "territories."

● 1899 - The Delta Sigma Phi fraternity is founded at the City College of New York.

● 1901 - The first Nobel Prizes are awarded in Stockholm, Sweden, in the fields of physics, chemistry, medicine, literature, and peace. The awards were devised by Alfred Nobel, who regretted the damage he had done mankind through his inventions of dynamite and other explosives.

● 1904 - The Pi Kappa Phi fraternity is founded at the College of Charleston in Charleston, South Carolina.

● 1905 - "The Gift of the Magi," a short story by William Sydney Porter, 43, was first published. Known by his pen name, O. Henry, Porter's writings were characterized by trick endings, making him a master of short story telling.

● 1906 - IWW sponsors first sit-down strike in U.S., at a General Electric plant in Schenectady, New York.

● 1906 - U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt wins the Nobel Peace Prize, becoming the first American to win a Nobel Prize of any kind, for helping mediate an end to the Russo-Japanese War.

● 1924 - Agreement reached on permanent rotation of World Series with each league, getting games 1, 2, 6, 7 in alternating years, since replace with league winning All Star game getting home field advantage.

● 1935 - The Downtown Athletic Club Trophy, later renamed the Heisman Trophy, was given to halfback Jay Berwanger of the University of Chicago. This award was given to the best college football player east the Mississippi River.

● 1936 - England replaces King Edward VIII stamp series with King George VI

● 1949 - Chinese Civil War: The People's Liberation Army begins its siege of Chengdu, the last Kuomintang-held city in mainland China, forcing President of the Republic of China Chiang Kai-shek and his government to retreat to Taiwan.

● 1950 - Dr. Ralph J. Bunche was presented the Nobel Peace Prize. He was the first African-American to receive the award. Bunche was awarded the prize for his efforts in mediation between Israel and neighboring Arab states.

● 1953 - Hugh Hefner published the first "Playboy" magazine with an investment of $7,600.

● 1954 - Philadelphia Phillies purchase Connie Mack Stadium

● 1954 - Albert Schweitzer receives Nobel Peace Prize

● 1956 - English Christian apologist C.S. Lewis wrote in a letter: 'In so far as the things unseen are manifested by the things seen, one might from one point of view call the whole material universe an allegory.'

● 1956 - Establishment of MPLA in Angola

● 1958 - The first domestic passenger jet flight took place in the U.S. when 111 passengers flew from New York to Miami on a National Airlines Boeing 707.

● 1958 - University of Pittsburgh agrees to buy Forbes Field from the Pirates

● 1961 - SNCC Freedom Rider test of ICC ruling in Albany, Georgia leads to five days of arrests, beginning on this day, of 469-500 students for marching around city hall. Some 350 choose to stay in jail as part of the Albany movement.

● 1961 - USSR & Albania break diplomatic relations

● 1962 - Hunters Point (San Francisco) jitney ends service after 50 years

● 1962 - Frank Gifford (New York Giants) was on the cover of "Sports Illustrated."

● 1963 - The United States Air Force's X-20 Dyna-Soar spaceplane program is cancelled by Robert McNamara. The evil bastard needed some way to pay for the war in Vietnam.

● 1963 - 6 year old Donny Osmond's singing debut on the Andy Williams Show

● 1963 - Zanzibar becomes independent within British Commonwealth

● 1964 - Several whites sprinkle gasoline over a Ferriday, Louisiana shoe shop, and making certain the black man inside had no possible means of escape, set fire to the place. He subsequently dies.

● 1964 - In Oslo, Norway, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. received the Nobel Peace Prize. He was the youngest person to receive the award.

● 1965 - The Grateful Dead play their first concert, at the Fillmore in San Francisco.

● 1974 - Representative Wilbur D. Mills (D-AR) resigns as chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee in the aftermath of the first truly public sex scandal in American politics; in October, Washington, D.C. police stopped Mills' car at the Tidal Basin for driving at night with his lights off, finding him "intoxicated, scratched, and bleeding." While questioning him, Annabel Battistella, a stripper who was known as "Fanne Fox, the Argentine Firecracker," jumped out of his car and leaped into the water.

● 1980 - South Carolina Representative John W. Jenretter resigned to avoid being expelled from the U.S. House of Representatives following his conviction on charges to the FBI's Abscam investigation.

● 1980 - Soyuz T-3 returns to Earth

● 1980 - USSR performs underground nuclear test

● 1981 - Mystery disease kills homosexuals; Mystery disease is causing increasing concern among medical practitioners in the United States. Called GRID, for Gay Related Immune Deficiency, at this time it would later be renamed AIDS for Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome.

● 1981 - The United Nations General Assembly approves Pakistan proposal for establishing nuclear free-zone in South Asia.

● 1981 - El Salvador army kills 900

● 1982 - Soyuz T-5 returns to Earth, 211 days after take-off

● 1982 - The Law of the Sea Convention was signed by 118 countries in Montego Bay, Jamaica. 23 nations and the U.S. were excluded.

● 1983 - Raul Alfonsin was inaugurated as Argentina's first civilian president after nearly eight years of military rule.

● 1996 - Rwandan Genocide: Military Advisor to the United Nations Secretary-General and head of the Military Division of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations of the United Nations Maurice Baril recommends that the UN multi-national forces in Zaire stand down.

● 1996 - South Africa's President Mandela signed into law a new democratic constitution, completing the country's transition from white-minority rule to a non-racial democracy.

● 1999 - After three years under suspicion of being a spy for China, computer scientist Wen Ho Lee was arrested. He was charged with removing secrets from the Los Alamos weapons lab. Lee later plead guilty to one count of downloading restricted data to tape and was freed. The other 58 counts were dropped.

● 2002 - Former President Jimmy Carter accepted the Nobel Peace Prize for his diplomacy in the Middle East in the 1970s.

● 2002 - The High Court of Australia hands down its judgement in the internet defamation case of Gutnick v Dow Jones.

● 2004 - A tombstone commemorating the 35th anniversary of the death of Brazilian guerrilla Carlos Marighella is inaugurated in Salvador, Bahia.

● 2003 - Mother cleared of murdering babies; The Court of Appeal has quashed the conviction of Angela Cannings, jailed for life for the murder of her two baby sons.

● 2003 - The U.S. Supreme Court upheld new restrictions on political advertising in the weeks before an election. The court did strike down two provisions of the new law that involved a ban on political contributions from those too young to vote and a limitation on some party spending. (McConnell v. FEC, 02-1674)

● 2003 - The U.S. barred firms based in certain countries, opponents of the Iraq war, from bidding on Iraqi reconstruction projects. The ban did not prevent companies from winning subcontracts.

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About Me

Life long Liberal. Actually saw JFK on campaign trail. Defining moment of my life was the assassination of JFK. First presidential election I participated in was knocking on doors for McGovern, have been tilting at windmills ever since.